


Looking Too Closely

by sorrens



Series: Love Thy Self as You Do Unto Others [3]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Bookstores, Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, No Betas We Fall Like Crowley, Self-Harm, Worried Aziraphale (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-08-10
Packaged: 2020-08-14 07:44:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20188750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorrens/pseuds/sorrens
Summary: Aziraphale and Crowley encounter a book shop worker with a history of self harm who tries to hide her scars.Naturally, trigger warning for implied self harming behaviours.





	Looking Too Closely

Aziraphale avoided other bookstores. Not because he didn’t enjoy browsing, no. Just the sight of books changing hands made him feel a tad anxious — suppose he was projecting slightly but now wasn’t quite the time to go in to that.

Crowley’s gaze had lingered on the front display: a large hardcover astronomy book surrounded by cellophane stars that caught the light and danced in the mid-morning glow. When Aziraphale had asked if he wanted to go in, the demon had thrown on an air of nonchalance, muttering something about checking the book’s accuracy. The angel hovered for a minute as he picked up the book reverently and smiled a little to himself, before having enough sense to make himself scarce... lest Crowley get caught _reading_.

Aziraphale wasn’t against popular fiction, but found it far less refined than the volumes that he kept in his shop. Certainly, in 200 years, when history has chosen a select few books from the 21st century to remain, leaving the other bestsellers in the dust, he might deign to pick up a copy of Harry Potter. So he breezed past the ‘Top 10” and found the penguin classics in a cozy little alcove near the back. These books he’d all but memorised, some of which were written with the angel himself present. This made it a rather interesting spot the difference game between reprints. A spelling change to suit the modern lexicon here, a printing error there. It was still up for debate which frustrated Aziraphale more. He tended to consider it on a case-by-case basis, but still privately treasured his hilarious collection of misprinted bibles. Very privately, he was fairly sure heaven wouldn’t approve.

“Oh, sorry!” Someone had backed in to him, books spilling across the floor. It was a shop clerk. As she hurried to pick up her items, Aziraphale could see she’d paired the store’s apron with a flowing black dress and large, ornate hoop earrings.

“No, no problem.” Aziraphale picked up the remaining copies of Marquez, giving them a quick once over for damage. “No harm done…” he squinted at the name tag “Marissa. Why, that’s a lovely name!”

“Thanks,” Marissa blushed and reached out to take the books from him. In the process, one of her long, black sleeves hitched up. She saw the man’s eyes staring at her arms, which were ridden with neatly lined up scars, and braced herself.

The most typical commenter were the middle aged ladies, who swanned in after a morning coffee with their mother’s group. They always had a neat cropped hairdo, and a Michael Kors purse hanging off their arm and a permanent expression of moderate distaste at everything. That is, until they spied the cuts on Marissa’s arms. Moderate distaste morphed in to intense judgement. Some would make do with a pointed glare and a small _tut-tut_ as she handed them their cookbooks. Others were decidedly more forthcoming with their opinion:

“What a horrible thing to do!” The lady ran her offensively pink Lo’real lipstick around her mouth and made a popping noise. “Why would you do that?”

Marissa froze in the process of pulling down her sleeves. There was a silence. _Oh_, the customer wasn’t spouting rhetoric, she wanted an answer.

“Oh— I, um.” Even if she did want to put it in to words, she found she couldn’t. Her spluttering drew a judgemental glare from the lady.

“You’re not one of _those_?” She raised her voice slightly. “One of t_hose”_ could have any number of meanings, but her manager was shooing the customer out the door before she could elaborate.

Marissa had heard it all. As far as she could divine, _those_ people are, to an (ignorant) outsider’s eye, one of three groups:

1\. She did it for attention. By far the easiest and most invalidating reason of the bunch, but one Marissa was well used to hearing. Since they had found out about her habit, her parents had aligned with this school of thought.

The other groups were irrelevant as they were equally as sickening, in Marissa's opinion, assuming some level of “craziness” that saw the person unable to integrate in to normal society. Marissa had often feared that her scars would make her seem unreliable, or untrustworthy, to potential employers. She had arrived at the bookshop in long sleeves, and had tried her best to remain that covered. Somewhere along the way, her manager had seen her arms as she coaxed special editions from the higher shelves. He hadn’t said anything. But he’d just sent that customer packing. It seemed she had an ally.

Back to the present, and no disapproving comment came from the man.

Rather, a soft “_Oh_” that sounded, if anything, upset.

Marissa reddened and, as she’d sometime trained herself to do, apologised.

“Sorry, you had to see that.” She turned away from the fussily dressed man and back to the shelf she was stacking.

When she turned back he was still there, rooted to the spot.

“No.” The man’s forehead creased as if he was trying to make sense of what she’d said. Indeed, he was. The angel was quite unsure why someone would apologise about their own suffering, about laying their soul bare, as if the mere reminder of their struggle was offensive to others.

“I’m sorry.” He stepped forward and grabbed Marissa’s hands, gently pushing up her sleeves so he could see the full extent of it. “I’m sorry you had to suffer like this.” His fingers traced the scars, weighing up his options. Angels can heal, yes, theoretically he could get rid of the scar tissue in a moment. The scars weren’t too deep, but peppered both of her forearms like a strangely uniform rash. But there was something not quite right, Aziraphale thought, about erasing her past in a split second.

He deliberated so long that the girl had pulled her hands away and was giving him a strange look.

“I don’t do it anymore.” She offered. “I’m in a better place.”

The angel’s face relaxed slightly. _They would heal with time, but there would remain light lines traced on the skin for decades to come._

There was something comforting in his presence, thought Marissa, as though he were a long lost acquaintance. Or maybe it was the way his voice was tinged with… disappointment. Not with her, no, but maybe something bigger. Something bigger that let the earth turn on as suffering continued multiply.

“I was thinking of getting some tattoos.” She wasn’t intending on sharing that but something about him screamed _trustworthy_. (Also, he was holding a copy of Jane Eyre and Marissa was inclined to respect anyone with such taste in literature).

“Quotes, from my favourite literature pieces.”

She traced up her arm.

“I was thinking, I have a line from Paradise Lost that can go right here.” She pointed at one of the larger scars. “And then, I love Shakespeare’s funny ones so I was thinking about something from Much Ado right there. And…” she trailed off and looked at the book in the man’s hand.

“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”

The man’s face lit up in recognition.

“Well, that’s beautiful my dear. And a beautiful sentiment, too.”

He looked visibly heartened.

“I’m glad you’re _here_.” He finished softly, not quite making eye contact. “I’d love to see those tattoos when they are done, I might pop back if that’s alright?”

Marissa wasn’t quite sure what the man had meant by "here". She suspected it was not quite in the literal sense, anyone could stack shelves in a bookshop for minimum wage. Maybe what he’d meant to say, but hadn’t quite found enough words to say it was, that she was _still here_. Despite the past etched in to her skin like a brand.

When the customer left, Marissa was not to know that the angel had left the scars to remind her that she had got through hell and was still going.

That she was strong.

For what she privately referred to as_ her worst part_ became with time (and a little ink) something she’d slowly come to accept.

**Author's Note:**

> If y'all were curious Crowley most definitely did purchase that book. After he'd bought it, he tried to shove it up the back of his jacket so Aziraphale wouldn't notice. He did, but he didn't want to embarrassed the demon, so he just let him slouch like Quasimodo until they parted ways.


End file.
